Designing OCD: Bringing Mental Illness to Life Online

In March 2016, agency cofounder, Aaron Harvey, launched the OCD awareness nonprofit www.Intrusive Thoughts.org to help OCD sufferers find information, treatment options and community support. In the year and a half since launch, the site has helped people around the world learn about their disorder and get on the proper path to treatment. Anastasia Kuznetsova, an Art Director at Ready Set Rocket and Designer of Intrusive Thoughts, recently spoke with Graphic Design USA about her process for bringing a taboo mental disorder to life:

“Since we were building a platform from the ground up, we started by creating a system that felt youthful, bold, unapologetic and provided a real level of understanding into who the OCD sufferer is. Those considerations were the most prominent reasons for selecting the imagery and tone of voice that we did. We didn’t want to sugar-coat the disorder. We wanted to provide a relatable experience and actionable advice. In making that decision, the biggest challenge was finding the right balance between empathy and realism. How can we make a site that is true to a sufferer’s thought process without being too triggering? Riding that line is the key to success.”